Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s barefaced denial yesterday that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 2013 Budget was an “election budget” illustrated what is wrong with the UMNO/Barisan Nasional government after 55 years in power – that the Umno/BN government leaders suffer from the dual terminal ailments of denial complex and unprecedented credibility gap.

Even UMNO/Barisan Nasional Ministers, MPs and members would not believe Muhyiddin’s brazen denial that Najib’s 2013 Budget was not an “election budget”.

Why then is the Deputy Prime Minister making a denial that is completely bereft of credibility, whether in Pakatan Rakyat or Barisan Nasional camps?

The only answer is that UMNO/BN leaders continue to suffer from the false sense that they could transform Malaysian politics into a world of make-believe and get ordinary Malaysians to believe what the UMNO/BN leaders decreed, although totally divorced from the world of reality.

It is because of this misguided and misplaced complex that caused UMNO/BN leaders to continue to deny that the growing fear of crime among Malaysians as well as rampant corruption in the country are major problems in the country, falling back on discredited GTP and NKRA statistics and claims of falling crime index and progress in the war against corruption. Read the rest of this entry »

SEPT 29 — Is this it? This is not a Budget, what was announced yesterday by Finance Minister Najib Razak was vote-buying through the liberal use of taxpayers’ funds.

Yesterday was making Malaysians more addicted to handouts, the opiate of the masses.

Idris Jala, aka the salesman, can talk all he wants about GST and Malaysia’s readiness to wean itself of subsidies and Najib can go on about cutting the budget deficit but this government did this country a great disservice yesterday: it mortgaged the future for short-term gain.

And it also did the virtually impossible: it cut taxes, gave out more money and said that it would still cut the deficit. Najib should bottle this miraculous potion and sell it to the US. Read the rest of this entry »

SEPT 29 — Now that both Budget 2013 from the ruling coalition and the shadow budget from the opposition have been presented, let’s take a look at how the two budgets stack up against one another.

This is the last budget before the general election and the stakes are high. Barisan Nasional (BN) has had a lot of experience in crafting budgets and surprised no one when it dished out cash and other goodies, particularly to the younger generation who are a significant chunk of the newly registered electorate and are an unknown quantity in terms of their voting inclinations.

It scored some points however for not going overboard with spending as expected by some economists and still managed to pare down its expected budget deficit to four per cent from an estimated 4.5 per cent this year.

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) is a relative novice when it comes to federal budgets and presented one that appears to be much more geared toward reforming the economy than the one from the Najib administration which appeared to have more-of-the-same type policy tinkering rather than sweeping fundamental changes.Read the rest of this entry »

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 29 — Voters have grown more discerning and are unlikely to be swayed by cash incentives and other one-off perks into casting their ballot for the Barisan Nasional (BN) government at national polls due soon, pundits said in weighing in on the impact of Budget 2013.

Political observers interviewed by The Malaysian Insider wholly agreed that the RM251.6 billion announced yesterday, which promised a slew of cash handouts and tax cuts spread across the board, was trained to appeal to key demographic groups in the run-up to the 13th general election, but said voters had become increasingly shrewd and capable of weighing the short-term personal gains against the long-term fiscal impact on the national economy.

“There are only two words to describe it — election budget,” said Monash University’s political science lecturer James Chin.

He noted that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has “pulled out all the stops and given the voters their sentiments, to let them think twice about voting for the opposition” in elections that must be held by next April when BN’s five-year mandate won in March 2008 runs out.

“People will compare the budget to Pakatan Rakyat’s and will also see how the second round of Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) will fuel inflation,” Chin added. Read the rest of this entry »